The present invention relates in general to hide processing equipment and in particular to a new and useful apparatus for parting the hairs of a hide to form a furrow for the facilitation of cutting and sewing the hide.
An apparatus for the parting of the hair of artificial or animal hides can be seen from German Pat. No. 22 04 399. The parting device is provided in equipment for the letting out of the hides. The parting device consists of a needle-like point which is disposed at the front end of a parting sword which is displaceable parallel to the hide. The parting sword is moved into the parting furrow created by the needle-like point to hold the hide hair in the parting position during the following operations.
A parting device formed by a needle-like point does not give satisfactory results in the case of very thick hides and in particular hides with thick underwool. In fact, because the needle-like point must be provided with a slight rounding or bend, because of the danger of it getting hooked in the leather, it may happen that the needle-like point only bends over some of the hairs, which in thick hides are usually thin, and then slides over them without parting them. If hairs remain in the parting furrow however, after a parting operation, this will have the result that during the subsequent cutting of the hide these hairs get through the commissure or junction, to the smooth (hairless) side of the hide and are fixed in this position when the hide parts are then sewn together. These hairs are then missing on the hairy side of the hide, which may result in an unattractive appearance.
A similar problem exists for the sewing on of hides or plush materials. Here the seam is to be placed in a hair-free parting furrow, so that on the one hand the seam will be covered by the hairs spring back from the furrow and on the other hand again the appearance of the hair nap will remain undisturbed to the full extent possible.